Update 12:45 p.m. Nov. 13: After additional provisional votes were counted Tuesday night, Joe Cobb extended his lead over David Bowers to 69 votes. Bowers is now behind by 0.17% of the vote.
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Democratic Joe Cobb saw his lead over Republican David Bowers in Roanoke’s mayoral race grow from 46 votes to 53 votes by Monday afternoon, when 167 votes were counted and added to the totals.
On Monday, Cobb gained the most votes, with 61 new votes, while Bowers gained 54, and independent Stephanie Moon Reynolds gained 52.
This puts the current tally at:
Cobb 14,958
Bowers 14,905
Moon 10,054
There are still votes to be counted, but it’s unclear how many. Roanoke had 1,223 provisional ballots, of which 811 came from people who registered on Election Day.
By the end of election night, Bowers was in the lead by 19 votes. But once the final mail-in ballots were counted, Cobb took a lead.
Nicholas Ocampo, director of elections and general registrar, could not be reached directly on Monday to confirm whether these newly counted votes were same-day or not.
Ocampo previously said that by the end of day Monday, the registrar’s office has to verify whether the same-day registrations received are valid, so that Tuesday, the commonwealth can move forward with a vote duplication checking process.
The counting of those last-minute ballots happens between then and Friday.
See also: Why we still don’t know who won the Roanoke mayor’s race (and some other elections)
